[J-core] Illegal instruction handling (was: Re: PC-relative loads and delay slots)

Robert Ou rqou at robertou.com
Wed Jul 20 17:51:19 EDT 2016


On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Rich Felker <dalias at libc.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 11:25:14AM -0700, Robert Ou wrote:
>> On Jul 20, 2016 9:13 AM, "Rich Felker" <dalias at libc.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 11:40:17PM -0700, Robert Ou wrote:
>> > > I just tested illegal instruction handling, and it does "work" with
>> > > some caveats:
>> > >
>> > > a) Illegal instruction checking is very limited as Geoff just explained.
>> > >
>> > > b) The vector used by illegal instructions is always hardcoded to 0.
>> > > This happens on line 78 of decode_core.vhm:
>> > > cd := x"0" & system_instr_codes(instr) & x"00";
>> > > If you change the x"00" to something else, then all "system operations
>> > > that are not external events" (slot illegal, general illegal, and
>> > > break) will then use that new vector.
>> >
>> > Do you mean it's ignoring the exception vector table at VBR and using
>> > a fixed address of 0? If so, I think this needs to be fixed in order
>> > for the trapping to be usable, but I didn't see anything in your patch
>> > that addresses it.
>>
>> No, it's using the address stored at VBR+0 always (the reset vector).
>> This is also pretty useless, and in my test I just changed it to x"02"
>> arbitrarily. Yes, this also needs to be fixed, and I didn't address it
>> in my patch. I didn't actually find anything that specifies what
>> vector number it is actually supposed to use.
>
> Ah, then that should be easy to fix. As far as I know (though I can't
> find them in the official docs), the right VBR slots are:
>
> # define TRAP_RESERVED_INST     4
> # define TRAP_ILLEGAL_SLOT_INST 6
>
> I'm pretty sure they need to be distinct traps in order for the
> handler code to correctly trap-and-emulate both cases.
>
> Rich

I used the attached patch (along with the previous one), and Linux now
prints "ILL" and terminates the program when running a program with an
illegal instruction (including in a delay slot). Before, it would
somehow either hang or skip over the illegal instruction. I have also
attached the program I have been using to test (a modified version of
hello.c). Unfortunately, the offsets in this patch are based on
applying it after my previous "intuitive PC-relative behavior in delay
slot" patch, but it should apply on an unmodified source tree with
some fuzz. I could really use a less potentially-buggy way of managing
patches though.

Robert
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